Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived a Lie
by Jacqui The Pirate
Summary: The writers of other books about Harry Potter have never had the pleasure or indeed misfortune of meeting him. I, Rita Skeeter have met him numerous times, which allows me to give the readers an insight into his life, a biography that I hope will provide an illuminating insight to "The Boy Who Lived"
1. Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived

**Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived a Lie**  
>By Rita Skeeter <p>

_As we all know, Harry Potter is a prominent person in our history_, _which means that there have been a lot of books written about him. However, on the whole, the writers of these books have never had the pleasure (or indeed misfortune) to meet him. I, Rita Skeeter, on the other hand, have met him numerous times, which allows me to give the readers an insight into his life that wouldn't have otherwise come to light. So sit back, grab yourself a cup of tea, or something a little stronger (you're going to need it!) and relax with my new book, _Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived a Lie

Rita Skeeter  
>*****<p>

**Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived**

Harry James Potter was born on July 31st, 1980, to parents Lily and James Potter. Lily was a pretty, red-headed Muggleborn girl, who everybody seemed to like. Needless to say, what little empathy Potter has is due to her genes, rather than his father's. James, on the other hand, was arrogant and bossy, especially when appointed Head Boy, with friends that were no better. Remus Lupin, a dangerous werewolf, who was allowed around the baby Harry when he was born, showing that James was hardly fit to be a parent with his approval of this dangerous act; Peter Pettigrew, who was thought to have been killed by Sirius Black, another friend, until he was found dead in mysterious circumstances in the Basement of the mansion belonging to disgraced pure-blood family the Malfoys; and Black himself, who although obviously did not kill Pettigrew, was still able to escape from Azkaban, and still remains the only person to do so, proving him to be a dangerous man, and was on the run until he was found dead in the Ministry of Magic in 1996.

These friends of James Potters show James to be the arrogant Pure-blood that people presumed him to be. Why else would he have taken to fellow pure-blood Sirius Black, who would one day be known as the wizard who killed thirteen Muggles with a single Curse? He also showed an unhealthy fascination with dangerous creatures, befriending Remus Lupin was a definite sign of this, as well as his friendship with dangerous half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, a friendship shared with his son, Harry, when he attended Hogwarts. Rumour has it that Lily and James hated each other in their earlier years of school, and eyewitnesses have told me that they saw the pair screaming at each other in the school grounds on plenty of occasions.

Lily and James got together in their final year at Hogwarts, although nobody was ever able to see why Lily, the beautiful Muggleborn with the heart of Gold, even considered dating the arrogant James Potter. Rumours of Love Potions, banned at Hogwarts, were rife at the time, although repudiated by Dumbledore, who was a has-been even then. The couple were made head boy and girl, which must have gone to both of their heads, as they lorded it over the school, becoming one of the most famous couples ever to attend Hogwarts.

The Potters went into hiding in October 1981 due to information that Dumbledore had somehow gleaned from his eavesdropping and sneaking around, and barely a week later, disaster struck. Under the information given by a spy (Pettigrew or Black, who it was is now unknown- See my book "Sirius Black: Friend or Foe for more information) the Dark Wizard known as "He Who Must Not Be Named" (also "the Dark Lord" and "You Know Who") turned up at the Potters' house and proceeded to murder the two adults in the house. After this, he tried to kill Harry, but was unable to. What is more, the Curse he used to try and kill Harry somehow backfired on himself, leaving him a fraction of the man he once was. Nobody knows why this was, although there are many rumours that Harry himself understands why this occurred, and the reason was that Harry harbours some kind of Dark Magic otherwise unknown. If this is true, then the Magical Community deserves to know about it; if the head of our Auror office is a Dark Wizard, then we deserve to know (see later chapters for more details on this).

After this fateful event, Potter went to live with his Muggle aunt and uncle. They refused to take him in at first, as even they, as Muggles, had been aware of the goings on on the fateful night of October 31st 1981, as strange things had been occurring all over the country, which was down to some people's sheer carelessness in the excitement of discovering the Dark Lord defeated. Potter was left on the doorstep of his relatives' house by Dumbledore, a gesture that was both dangerous and thoughtless, as Harry Potter had just managed to defeat the Dark Lord (temporarily). Because of this, surely the little one year old boy deserved a bit more protection than being dumped on somebody's doorstep, even if he was related to them. Little is known of Potter during this time, but it is understood that he was able to cast spells at a young age, putting his Muggle schoolmates at risk and even his own cousin. Potter's cousin, Dudley Dursley, was tracked down for this book, but although unwilling to talk at first, was soon convinced to talk about the early years of Potter's life. Let's just say he couldn't resist my charm. Sitting in his home in Kent we discussed his childhood with the Boy Who Lived.

"Harry once set a boa constrictor on me," said Dudley, his eyes glazing over at the memory. "My friend was there at the time, it was dangerous."  
>We also talked of the way that Potter behaved in the family, and Dudley confirmed that he was an outsider, not willing to fit in with the rest of his family, and he was not well liked at school.<br>"Weird things kept happening. He changed the teacher's hair colour and we didn't like it. Some people decided to beat him up"  
>The confirmation of Potter being an outsider ties in with what we know about him already. He was a strange boy at school, and as dear Dudley said, weird things did indeed keep happening around him. However, Potter maintains that he knew nothing of his magical heritage whilst at the Muggle school, a fact that Dudley has also confirmed.<p>

After seven years attending a Muggle school, Potter was told on his 11th birthday that he was a wizard- information that his Muggle family had chosen not to share with him, possibly because of these "weird" things that kept happening around him. They were scared, and Potter's magic was a danger to them. He was told by Hogwarts gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid, a dangerous half giant with a love for all things large and vicious. Why then did Dumbledore choose him to tell Potter about his Magical heritage when it was more traditional for a Hogwarts teacher to do the honours? Perhaps Dumbledore even then suspected the boy to be capable of some sort of Dark magic the rest of us wouldn't even dream of. This was a boy who nobody knew anything about, a boy who was made to live with Muggles, Muggles who tried to drain the magic out of him as a young child. There must have been a reason for this. It is true that theses Muggles were Harry Potter's only family, but there were plenty of magical families who would have thought it an honour to adopt him. So why was he sent to live with Muggles, when he would have been treated like a king had he been adopted by a magical family. The again, who knew what sort of ways Albus Dumbledore's mind worked? He maintained that he was "doing what was best for Harry", but was this really the case? Perhaps Dumbledore was jealous of the way that a small baby had been able to get rid of a Dark Wizard in the way that he had never been able, so decided to cast him aside into a Muggle family in order to either allow his family to stamp the magic out of him or try and make the Magical community forget about him.


	2. Chapter 2: Return to the Magic

**Chapter two: Return to the Magic**

In 1991, Harry Potter, "The Boy Who Lived", started his magical education. He started his year by being Sorted into Gryffindor, just as his parents were before him. People were curious, causing teachers and pupils alike to swan around him, wanting to know more, wanting to be close to the famous Harry Potter. This was the boy who managed to survive an Avada Kedavra attack and defeat a Dark Wizard at the same time. He hadn't been seen in the magical community for ten years. It is rumoured that the Death Eaters, He Who Must Not Be Named's followers, were hoping to rally around him, something which Potter naturally knew nothing about. If he had known, however, there is no doubt, given what we now know about his delusions and his history of mental illness, that his eleven-year-old mind would have relished this idea, and the outcome of this story may have been very different indeed.

The appearance of Potter within the magical community for the first time in ten years caused all sorts of rumours to hit my ears, setting the writer in me to overdrive. However, at the time, certain workers at the Daily Prophet joined together to silence me- at the time, Potter and his "amazing feat" were still flavour of the month (or decade), and certain other people mentioned were contributors and sponsors of the paper, so it was not in the best interests of the Prophet. However, my meticulous filing means that I can share the article here.

**_Saturday 28__th__ September, 1991_**

_**Potter's Power over Dark Lord's Death Eaters**_

_By Rita Skeeter_

_Harry 'The Boy Who Lived' Potter, the young boy who defeated He Who Must Not Be Named in, it must be said, suspicious circumstances, has come back into the spotlight after ten years of exile in the Muggle Community. But strange rumours are being detected by this writer's ears; unsavoury rumours of respected members of society and their relationship with the Dark Lord. The rumours seem to point towards the young Potter boy and the strange way in which he defeated the Dark Lord. _

_Some of these people, ex-Death Eaters who fobbed off the Aurors with lies of bewitchment (and the ridiculous excuse for an Auror office believed them), seem to believe that this young, innocent boy could be the next big thing on the Dark Wizard front. _

_Obviously, dippy Dumbledore will have a huge cover-up planned, someone with Potter's history is perfect for his style of secret, but the cover-up isn't going to cut it, not if the Death Eaters decide that some eleven-year-old boy is perfect Dark Lord material, which they are stupid enough to do. These are the people who followed a wizard who was finally defeated by a one-year-old!_

_However, whether this little boy is dangerous or not, people need to know, and it's down to me, Rita Skeeter, to get to the bottom of it, and more importantly, let the faithful readers of the Daily Prophet know of the dangers they may be in. _

However, the article was silenced by the powers that be at the Prophet. If it had been allowed to run, Potter would have found out about the rumours of the Death Eaters' plans to rally around him. If he had known, there is no doubt, given what we know now about his delusions and his history of severe mental illness, that his eleven-year-old mind would have relished the idea, and I, who was supporting the poor child at this point, would never have forgiven myself, as the outcome of this story would have been very different indeed.

Potter made just one friend when he first attended Hogwarts, according to those who attended with him. This friend was Ronald Weasley, son of the Muggle-loving fool and Ministry of Magic employee Arthur Weasley, whose pure-blood family are known for their red hair and penchant for getting themselves into trouble. Ronald Weasley, who would later be known purely for being Potter's friend, may not have been the sort of person people would choose as a best friend for someone as famous as Harry Potter, but for some strange reason that is who he chose. Later on in their first year, the duo became a trio when they joined forces with Hermione Granger (now married to Ronald Weasley), who seemed a much more obvious choice as a friend for the famous Boy Who Lived, with her brains and cleverness. Potter would go on to be romantically linked to Miss Granger later on in their school lives, a fact that Weasley seems to have either forgiven or forgotten.

Potter, Granger and Weasley were a trio of schoolchildren who would go down in history. Had they known this, they would probably have been a little more careful when in school. In their very first week at Hogwarts, Potter and Weasley, according to records kept by caretaker Argus Filch, were found trying to break into a restricted area of the school; a vision of what was to come, perhaps, and also showing that Potter was desperate to follow in his father's footsteps as a rule-breaker.

Of course, this was only the beginning of Potter's rule-breaking. Filch's records show that, along with Weasley and Granger, Potter fought a troll that for some reason was loitering in a girls' bathroom in the castle at Halloween. What Potter and Weasley were doing in a girls' bathroom in the first place is a mystery, but it is a recurring theme in Potter's school life, according to Filch's records. The fact that Potter and his friends were not killed by the troll may be another sign of possible Dark Magic that Potter is rumoured to harbour.

And although this was one of the worst situations that Potter and co found themselves in during their first year, it was not the last bout of rule-breaking. Filch's records listed midnight duelling, magic in corridors and, most extraordinarily, a confession of dragon smuggling, which although probably true, has never been proven.

However, even dragon smuggling could not compare to the claims that Potter made near the end of his first year, regarding the death of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Professor Quirrell. Potter's delusions were rife at even this young age, as he claimed (and apparently does to this day) that Quirrell was possessed by You-Know-Who, and was killed through this possession while Quirrell, obviously blinded by its power, was trying to get his hands on Nicolas Flamel's Philosopher's Stone. The fact that Flamel's stone was destroyed while residing at Hogwarts and Flamel himself died suggests that there may be some truth in Potter's amazing story. However, the question remaining is how the stone was destroyed. Did the stone have its own powers, as yet unknown by any of the top witches and wizards? Did Potter destroy it to stop Quirrell using it, or indeed did Quirrell destroy it to stop Potter from strengthening his Dark Powers? Only one person who is still alive who knows for certain, and as Potter refuses to speak to me, we can only guess what actually happened.


	3. Chapter 3: Parseltongue and Poetry

**Chapter three: Parseltongue and Poetry**

After the fiasco that was Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts, nobody thought that he could make his life any more hectic, but how wrong they were! His second school year started in an even more confusing way than the last, as he managed to make headlines in the _Daily Prophet_ twice in a week- not bad for a twelve year old, one might say!

His first entry into the well known British magical newspaper was with the then famous author and fantasist (this writer's opinion only, readers!), Gilderoy Lockhart, taken in Diagon Alley's Flourish and Blott's. Lockhart had just released his wittering and long-winded autobiography, _Magical Me_, and, not content with being vaguely famous himself, decided to drag someone else into the picture- Harry Potter, a twelve-year-old boy who was more famous than him without even trying to be. As the resulting photograph showed, Potter displayed an unusual bout of sensibility, looking less than impressed at having his photograph taken with such a drivelling buffoon, so much so that his image seemed to be trying to escape the frame- something repeated in a photograph obtained from Dennis Creevey, brother of Potter's pitiful and ill-fated friend Colin.

However, this doesn't mean that Potter was reluctant to flaunt his fame. Barely a week later, he was seen on the front page of the _Prophet_ flying a blue car belonging to Weasley's father (a ministry of magic employee no less) in a blatant disregard for the Statute of Secrecy, and was seen by numerous Muggles across the country. Potter was not named in the article (no doubt a cover-up by dubious headmaster Albus Dumbledore) but we know from Argus Filch's extensive (and probably obsessive- Filch seems to have noted every piece of rule-breaking ever) records that Potter and Weasley received detentions for this misdemeanour - a mild punishment for something that would land any normal person in a cell in Azkaban. But yet again Potter slipped through the net, dragging Weasley through (not reluctantly, one assumes).

Potter's second year in Hogwarts was probably even weirder than his first. Halloween seemed to be Potter's rule-breaking date of choice, as once again he either dived or was dragged into yet another suspicious circumstance, this time entwined with the (obviously mythical) story of the Chamber of Secrets, supposedly built into the castle by the noblest of the four Hogwarts founders, Salazar Slytherin.

So how did Potter use this myth to break the rules? Filch's records go into extreme detail regarding the whole scenario; Potter obviously struck a nerve with him on this one. Strange happenings were occurring in the school, and Filch claims that Potter "petrified" his cat, along with a number of students that Potter appeared to have run-ins with throughout the year, ending with a Ravenclaw Prefect and his friend and future love interest, Hermione Granger.

It is unknown how Potter Petrified these people and animals, but it adds to the long list of magic he seems to have, which also includes the ability to speak Parseltongue (a fact that Potter claims is no longer true since the demise of You Know Who). Petrifying Granger was a rare inspired moment for Potter, obviously putting people off the scent, but this writer can see through _that_ thinly veiled decoy.

When the youngest member of the Weasley family, Ginevra (known as Ginny and now married to Potter) went missing near the end of the school year, Dumbledore suspiciously put out the story that she had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets and Potter, who received a singing Valentine from Ginny, saved her from a Basilisk. This conveniently covers up the petrification mystery, and a backfiring wand was blamed for the tragic memory loss of the buffoon Lockhart. Yet again Dumbledore (whose motives always were dubious) nicely covered up another sinister and probably illegal episode of Harry Potter's life.


	4. Chapter 4: The Escape of Sirius Black

**Chapter four: The Escape of Sirius Black**

There were some strange goings-on before Harry Potter returned to Hogwarts in September 1993. First of all, Sirius Black, notorious Muggle killer and obvious Death Eater (again, see "Sirius Black: Friend or Foe"), made the first escape from Azkaban under the noses of the Dementors. It was rumoured that Black was planning to go to Hogwarts at this point, whether to kill Harry Potter or encourage him to become a rally point for other Death Eaters. Both seemed plausible options for Black, who had been in Azkaban for twelve years without contact with any other Death Eaters.

Around the same time, according to Potter's cousin Dudley Dursley, who as I have mentioned before was so good to be persuaded to be interviewed for this book, Potter managed to "blow up his aunt".

"We were all sat having a meal when Harry lost his temper. Next thing we knew, Aunt Marge was inflating, then she floated away. Harry legged it. My parents were really worried, they didn't know where he'd gone, and Aunt Marge was in trouble."

Dudley was obviously badly scarred by this episode, and we can see that Potter was a terribly bad influence on the poor boy who was evidently threatened by Potter's magic. However, he must have been very concerned about his cousin, and no doubt spent a lot of the night searching the streets for Potter.

According to Ernie Prang, mad driver of the Knight Bus, Potter boarded his bus, heading for London.

"He got on, giving us a false name, and I don't blame him, blew up his aunt and all, spilt hot chocolate all over his pillow. He chatted to us and didn't even know who Sirius Black was, just saw him on one of those Muggle telly-whatsits, so I don't know why you're asking me what Black had to do with Harry Potter," he said, as I was forced to travel on that rickety old bus to interview him. Obviously Prang was enchanted by the obvious celebrity travelling on his bus- the "false name" story doesn't wash with me! Prang wasn't aware of the lengths Potter would go to lie about, well, anything really, having only met the boy a handful of times.

Potter ended up staying at the Leaky Cauldron, the magical haven of waifs and strays from all over Britain. It makes one wonder why Harry managed to avoid yet another run-in with the law. After his exploding-pudding act the previous year, Potter should have been expelled from Hogwarts as per the rules set down by the Ministry of Magic. However, this is before people like the Minister, Cornelius Fudge, realised what a barmy weirdo Potter actually is. As the Minister still thought that Potter was a genius, he probably just made the inflating-aunt incident "go away".

Potter met the first of his father's friends, Remus Lupin, at the beginning of his third year at Hogwarts, as Lupin had been appointed Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. What that mad fool Dumbledore was doing, appointing a werewolf within the school, we will never know, but he was putting all of his students in danger.

A source, who does not wish to be named, claims that Potter was becoming increasingly friendly with the werewolf, taking remedial lessons with him throughout the year. It has been suggested that Lupin was using Potter as a replacement for his father, James, and there have been rumours of a map, a map used for rule-breaking, which Lupin had passed on to Potter as a last request from Potter, Sr. It is unknown whether this map ever existed, and whether it actually fell into Potter's hands. It may have been reality, or it may have been a myth worthy of Beedle the Bard. We may never know.

Potter trundled along with his studies, as mediocre as ever. There is no evidence to suggest when Potter realised that Sirius Black was friends with his father, and was in fact Potter's own Godfather. Black managed to get into the school at Halloween that year. It was claimed that he was trying to kill Potter- something his master had been unable to do. Another rumour was that Black was going to kidnap Potter and use his charms to brainwash him into a rally point for the Death Eaters.

My source tells me that at Christmas, the talk of the school was the present that Potter had received, a Firebolt broomstick. Nobody knew who had given him the broom, as it was well known that Potter hated his only blood relatives, and they hated him. It was unlikely that the Dursleys had given him the broomstick- the poor Muggle fools would never have found out where to buy a racing broom even if they'd wanted to.

Another point of interest is that Potter's very good friend, the mad half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, was in trouble with the Ministry when a Hippogriff attacked star pupil Draco Malfoy. Potter was a part of the class, and it must be noted that Potter had been riding the same Hippogriff moments before the horrific attack. What did Potter do to make the Hippogriff attack the young boy who was obviously trying to learn, and who was known to be an enemy of the Potter boy.

Most of the rest of Potter's third year puttered along without incident- until the Hogwarts exam period. Suspiciously, the day that the Hippogriff was meant to be executed by the Ministry, was the day that Sirius Black managed to both get into Hogwarts and escape from it, from under the Minister of Magic's nose. It would be naïve to think that these two facts are unrelated, just as it would be naïve to think that Potter had nothing to do with either incident. It is known that Potter and his sycophantic chums, Ronald Weasley, who is barely worth mentioning, and that ghastly Muggleborn Hermione Granger, met Black that night, and although Dumbledore always claimed that the three were safely in the castle at the time of the escape of both the Hippogriff and Black. It would be easy to connect the two- the most logical explanation would be that Black stole the Hippogriff and escaped that way, but the two incidents were some three hours apart.

Cornelius Fudge, then the bumbling Minister for Magic (how he managed to get that position we'll never know), claimed later that it was something to do with a dead man and a Time-Turner. Intriguing words, to be sure. Who was the dead man? Who would have a Time-Turner? My source claims that it was the Granger girl who had the Time-Turner, and one could hazard a guess that the dead man was the fourth of the quartet of Potter Sr.'s friends, Peter Pettigrew. We know that the idiot faked his own death, or that Black faked it for him (see Sirius Black- Friend or Foe), because of his discovery some sixteen years later, but was he there that night? Why would he be at Hogwarts as well? There are some things we may never know, but what we do know is that something strange happened that night, and it was something to do with Potter.


	5. Chapter 5: Triwizard Terror

**Chapter Five- Triwizard Terror**

Ah, Harry Potter's fourth year. The year that I first got to meet him. The year that my hopes for the boy were completely dashed. Potter entered himself into the Triwizard Tournament, a tournament between the three European Wizarding schools- Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Of course, he denied doing any such thing, yet was still allowed to continue. Yet another nutter ended up teaching at Hogwarts that year- Dumbledore's insane friend, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody. Mad-Eye claimed that Potter had been entered into the Tournament by somebody else because of the nature of the Goblet of Fire, but this writer doesn't believe it for a second. Potter was desperate for fame, we'd seen it before, with his insistence of getting onto the front page of the Prophet aged twelve, his following of Gilderoy Lockhart like a heartbroken puppy, getting himself into detentions just to be in the presence of a real celebrity, albeit a useless one.

I first met Potter before the first Task of the Tournament, where he fed me a load of rubbish about being a lonely orphan, about how much he missed his parents, although he obviously didn't remember them in the slightest, and about how he was dating that pushy Muggleborn Hermione Granger- something she knew nothing about. It pains me to think about how he'd taken me in, pretending that he was sad about his parents, fabricating relationships and putting on charms he definitely didn't possess in real life. However, I soon wised up to the real Potter, and took great pleasure in sharing this with the Wizarding Community. It was a good thing I did, as it allowed us a brief respite where we no longer had to fawn over him every time he handed in an essay or finished his dinner.

After my first meeting with Potter, and my first article about him, for which I am frankly ashamed, I tried to get some information about him from his classmates, who were very helpful. I didn't interview Potter after the First Task, because I'd got the idea that there was something quite wrong with him, and I wanted a fair and unbiased view of the boy, instead of his self-deluded innocence.

I quickly found out that Potter wasn't as well liked as he wanted me to believe. He was constantly getting himself into trouble and losing points for his House, Gryffindor (why he was put there, we don't know- the Sorting Hat must have had a moment of madness). I did, however, manage to get a scoop on Potter's half-giant pal, Hagrid. Before my discovery, nobody was aware of the Care of Magical Creatures so-called "professor" had such a dangerous heritage. Potter seemed right at home with this dangerous "man", who had been expelled when he was fifteen for setting a monster on the school.

At the time, I believed that Potter had no knowledge of Hagrid's bloodline, but I'm not so sure now. Potter seems to have always had the same sort of attraction to the dangerous as Hagrid, with his friendships with Remus Lupin and Hagrid himself.

What with his Triwizard Tasks, his made-up relationships and his attraction to dangerous beasts, one would thing that Potter had enough to deal with, when it emerged that his faked relationship with Miss Granger may not have been so faked after all. Granger had attended the Yule Ball, a Christmas celebration connected with the Triwizard Tournament, with Triwizard Champion and World-renowned Quidditch player Viktor Krum. It was confirmed by their classmate, Pansy Parkinson, that Granger was controlling Krum with a Love Potion, which was banned at Hogwarts. Although Potter was becoming more and more out of control, the readers of Witch Weekly were definitely on his side, causing Miss Granger to receive rather a lot of hate mail, something she probably deserved after toying with the hearts of both Potter and Krum. What Miss Granger declined to realise is that at this time, Potter was still in the hearts of the nation, and were overprotective of his feelings.

However, this was all about to change. Potter was about to be de-throned as the nation's favourite fourteen-year-old. His mental health was beginning to fail, causing him to collapse and complain of pain in his lightning-bolt scar. This writer personally witnessed him fleeing from a Divination class. A perfectly acceptable reaction perhaps, given the subject, you might think. Unfortunately, this wasn't a simple dislike of Divination, as the Potter boy was complaining of a pain in his scar, and it seems that it wasn't the first time, as the teacher, one Professor Sybil Trelawney, barely flinched as Potter left the room. It was around this time that it was revealed, by fellow classmate Draco Malfoy, that Potter could speak Parseltongue, something he currently denies, although as mentioned before, he refuses to be interviewed for this book.

The ability to talk to snakes is considered to be linked to the Dark Arts, and whether he can converse with our serpentine friends or not, the fact that he is rumoured to have this ability is enough to make people suspicious. Combined with the fact that Potter was having funny turns and pains in cursed scars, it was becoming obvious that Potter shouldn't be even allowed to mingle with the rest of Hogwarts, let alone be allowed to compete in the remaining Triwizard Task- a suspicion that was about to be proven in a sinister twist.

It is unknown what exactly happened in the maze put up for the final task, but there was proof that Potter should never have been allowed to continue with the competition. The maze was designed so that the audience could not see what was happening.

The crowd waited for hours for Potter and fellow Champion Cedric Diggory to emerge from the maze, after Krum and Beauxbatons Champion Fleur Delacour needed to be rescued. When they finally emerged, something was immediately wrong. Instead of the smiling face of the winner of the Tournament, the crowd saw Potter, clutching the Triwizard Cup and the dead body of his fellow champion. His claim was that the apparently dead Peter Pettigrew had killed Cedric before taking part in a ritual to return the Dark Lord to his former glory. Although we now know that He Who Must Not Be Named did indeed return at around this time, and his description to Dumbledore of the ritual and the death of Cedric were vivid and highly detailed. Specialists think that the rich details that Potter managed to provide were the details only provided by the truly insane, although the mad boy seems to have been right this once.

Dumbledore naturally swallowed the whole story,and mobilised his troops immediately, and the former members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's ludicrously named anti-Dark Lord organisation, ran around like headless chickens, holding onto his every word, while Potter looked around at the madness he had caused- and smiled.


	6. Chapter 6: Mistrust at the Ministry

**Chapter six- Mistrust in The Boy Who Lived**

Potter evidently expected the Wizarding Community to continue to fawn over him when he returned to Hogwarts that year, but something stopped that before he got anywhere near the place. Claiming a Dementor attack, Potter performed a Patronus Charm in front of his Muggle cousin, Dudley Dursley. Obviously, Potter was trying to either impress or scare his cousin, who had very little experience of magic before that day.

Dudley was badly scarred by that day, curiously unwilling to talk about the experience despite my most convincing charms. The Patronus Charm can be terrifying to young magical children, so imagine how poor Dudley felt when Potter showed him a fairly impressive piece of magic. The only other person who was there at the night, and who gave evidence at the trial, was Arabella Figg, a squib who claimed to have seen the Dementors as they attacked Potter and his cousin. Top magical researchers are still unsure as to whether squibs can see Dementors, and as Figg was a member of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix, and completely batty to boot, one has to wonder why Fudge and the Wizengamot decided to believe her alongside our evidently disturbed subject. I would have reported the hearing myself, but I was unable to work at the time, due to a stress-related illness.

Unfortunately, Dumbledore managed to get Potter off on the charges, somehow (probably some loophole Fudge missed...again), and Potter was allowed to return to Hogwarts. A Hogwarts that was, quite rightly, against him, with his classmates scared of him, and his two idiotic best friends being made prefects. Evidently, even Dumbledore had his misgivings about Potter, and by making his friends prefects, he was able to find a way to keep an eye on the boy. However, these friends of Potter's weren't going to go behind his back and tell Dumbledore about the strange and often illegal activity that he was involved in. Cornelius Fudge decided that Potter and Dumbledore being loose on the school was dangerous, and passed a Decree allowing him to put any person into Hogwarts as Staff, providing Dumbledore could not find a "suitable candidate"

It is unknown where Potter spent the remainder of the holidays, as Dudley stated to me during our interview that he did not return to their house in Little Whinging after his mysterious disappearance during the absence of the rest of the Dursleys to attend an awards ceremony. It is suspected that Potter spent the rest of his time with his godfather, Sirius Black, which would not have helped his obviously frail state of mind, spending time with a convicted killer; alternately, he may have stayed at the headquarters of Dumbledore's ridiculous club known as the Order of the Phoenix. It may be important to note that the house belonging to the Weasley family was notably empty during this summer, although again it is not completely clear where they were hiding.

Obviously, Fudge had a small moment of insight, enforcing the employment of his Senior Undersecretary, Delores Umbridge, arguably one of the best teachers that Hogwarts has ever seen. She took the job of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and set about teaching the theory behind Defence. Evidently, Fudge was worried that the students of the school were learning the wrong kind of magic, and with the dangers involved with their previous two Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, it is hardly surprising, and Delores Umbridge, no matter what rumours Potter and his friends tried to spread, was not dangerous in any way, and was probably the best thing to happen to the school in a very long time. Potter did not agree. According to Pansy Parkinson, Potter received a number of detentions from Delores Umbridge for spreading malicious rumours about the Ministry of Magic, Madame Umbridge herself, and of course he added a few of his own delusions in there. According to Pansy, Umbridge was acting in Potter's best interests, as she was attempting to stop Potter from scaring the rest of the school, and the Wizarding population in general, as well as stopping Potter for his own good. Umbridge settled easily into Hogwarts, well liked among the majority of students. But our favourite young troublemaker decided that he didn't like her, and set about making her life a misery.

"Potter insisted on lying to me at every available moment" says Delores, as we sit in her stunning pink kitchen, drinking tea. "I was forced to put him in a number of detentions, which made no difference whatsoever to the way that he acted. I'm not ashamed to say that he made my teaching job a misery. He put me off working with teenagers for life, which is a shame, because there are lots of lovely young people out there, yet Potter had to spoil things."

In time, Delores Umbridge became "High Inquisitor" of Hogwarts, a position that has not been held before or since, which allowed her to go above the heads of every other teacher in the school, including Dumbledore himself. This was evidently because Dumbledore, as a believer of Potter's lies, was a danger to the school. This was shown later in the school year when Dumbledore, using a loophole that the Ministry had not forseen, employed yet another dangerous "teacher", the centaur known as Firenze. At the time, the Daily Prophet, quoting Percy Weasley, brother of Potter's friend Ron, said that Madame Umbridge was an "immediate success", and also stated that certain members of the Wizengamot, who were known friends of Dumbledore's and involved in dubious groups themselves, to quit.

Potter must have known what a fiasco his lies and claims were causing, but made no attempt to stop. I myself was duped, with the help of that Granger girl, into writing a ridiculous piece for that tripe passing itself off as a newspaper, the Quibbler. As I said earlier, I had stopped writing earlier that year due to stress-related illness, but Granger and Potter took full advantage of that and I ended up writing a shameful piece repeating every single one of Potter's claims. Granted, some of them turned out to be true, like the naming of many Death Eaters, but whether Potter actually knew this or just read old reports from the earlier Death Eater trials, I am still unsure. However, the Wizarding community of Britain decided that the Quibbler piece was truth, because (undoubtedly due to my absence from the paper) the Prophet had many glaring omissions from the news.

In amongst his lying to authority and furthering his media presence, Potter was also scheming right underneath Delores Umbridge's nose. Although it was never proved, Potter build up a secret organisation called "Dumbledore's Army", teaching fellow students banned spells and curses under the guise of teaching Defence. As this was not just against the rules of Hogwarts, but also, since the appointment of High Inquisitor, against the law, Fudge got himself involved yet again. Dumbledore claimed to have set up the organisation, which would have made it strictly legal, yet within a grey area, but he also claimed that there was a six-month gap in between the first meeting in that fleapit The Hog's Head and the meeting where Potter was caught teaching spells by Professor Umbridge. Nobody is entirely sure how, not even Delores Umbridge herself, who was there at the time, but Dumbledore vanished from right under their noses. Potter was undoubtedly involved, but again, he's keeping his silence.

Rumours were rife during this year of Potter's friend, Hagrid, who was absent at the beginning of the school year. A favoured idea is that Hagrid, known for his dangerous obsession with large and unpleasant creatures, found his long lost half-brother, a terrifying, sixteen foot giant with the apparent name of Grawp. Hagrid's first action after stowing his brother in the woods was, naturally, to inform Potter and his friends, whose responsibility was to report Hagrid to the relevant authorities, as giants are dangerous and bloodthirsty, and storing one in the Forbidden Forest was a danger to every single teacher, student and Hogsmeade resident. But did Potter do that? Of course not. Potter and his friends kept this a secret, supposedly to protect Hagrid. But with Potter's obsession with war on the Ministry, he evidently felt that keeping a giant secret was an important backup weapon if things weren't going his way. It goes to show exactly how deluded Potter was during this year- he was hated throughout the school, he had a personal vendetta against Fudge and Umbridge, and it was evident that he was desperate to get his own back- and all of these added up to him feeling as though he could control a full-grown, illegal, war-loving giant who apparently couldn't speak English. In fact, the very night that Potter lured The Dark Lord to the Ministry, he made his way into the Forbidden Forest with Hermione Granger and Madame Umbridge, and left Umbridge to be attacked by centaurs before trying to enlist the giant to help them with their plan. Luckily for everyone, the giant didn't want to come with them, leaving Potter and his friends to make their way to London without him.

The rumour was that Harry and his friends became obsessed with a prophecy made about Harry and the Dark Lord that would allow Harry to overthrow the Ministry under the orders of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This did not go entirely to plan, however, as bumbling Fudge appeared before Harry was able to complete his orders. You Know Who did appear at the Ministry that night, but it is unknown whether he was resurrected soon before, or whether Potter was telling the truth about him returning the year before. You Know Who was able to kill Sirius Black before he vanished with the Death Eaters who did not get captured by bumbling Dumbledore, who reappeared just in time to stop You Know Who from securing his position within the Ministry, conveniently. One has to wonder how he managed to return to the public eye at the time that he was needed, when he had been in hiding for half the year. We have to assume that Potter was in constant contact with Dumbledore, as he would have had no idea had he been really hiding.

Potter succeeded in convincing the Wizarding World that he had been right all along concerning You Know Who, but certain members of the community still had their doubts. Why would Potter have been letting the community know that You Know Who had returned if he had been working with him, unless it was an elaborate double-bluff? What did Potter have planned next if his plot to overthrow the Ministry had failed so catastrophically. It is true that Fudge was sacked not long after this, but Potter went about his schooling as usual afterwards. Overall, Potter's fifth year at the famous school was a mixed bag.


End file.
